: Forgotten Polymath’s Prison Experiment Inspired Bollywood Classic Won a Golden Globe #IndiaNEWS #Cinema Do Aankhen Barah Haath, a 1957 Hindi cinema classic directed by V Shantaram, which among

Forgotten Polymath’s Prison Experiment Inspired Bollywood Classic Won a Golden Globe #IndiaNEWS #Cinema
Do Aankhen Barah Haath, a 1957 Hindi cinema classic directed by V Shantaram, which among other accolades won a National Award and Golden Globe Award, has a remarkable back story. A cannon of popular Hindi cinema, this film took inspiration from a unique pre-Independence social experiment organised by an extraordinary Jewish polymath and polyglot from Poland. (Above image of Maurice Frydman on the Left and the film poster on the right)

In the late 1930s, Maurice Frydman, who went by Swami Bharatananda after renouncing the world and taking vows of Sannyasa, was invited by Apa Pant, the Prince of Aundh, a small princely state in present-day Maharashtra, and his father Raja Bhawan Rao [Balasaheb, titled Pant Pratinidhi], a strong supporter of the freedom struggle.

Maurice, an engineer by trade, was called upon by Apa Pant to improve the condition of impoverished villages in the princely state suffering from regular drought-like conditions.

At this erstwhile princely state, Maurice helped MK (Mahatma) Gandhi implement his ideas of local self-government, which historians famously call the Aundh Experiment.

Besides assisting Gandhi in drafting the November Declaration in 1939, which handed over the rule of Aundh from the monarch to its residents, and convinced the Raja to abolish capital punishment, he also established a free prison or open jail in Swatantrapur village.

In this open prison, prisoners had the option of staying with their families, working on farms and were made to do work for village projects like digging wells and building schools.

“He taught them how to build houses, he taught them agriculture; he taught them all the skills they needed to live independent lives and the recidivism rate was zero. Not a single one of these people ever needed to go back to jail. I have seen interviews with these people. Filmed interviews (of them) in their 90s. They were old men, and they were crying. They just said, ‘Maurice saved us’,??? said David Godman, a friend and author of Be As You Are, an edited anthology of the revered Hindu sage Sri Ramana Maharshis teachings, in a 2016 interview for the YouTube channel Buddha At The Gas Pump.

Years later, filmmaker V Shantaram heard about Maurice’s social experiment. Godman stated that Maurice was hired by Shantaram as a technical advisor for the film.

Despite Shantarams repeated requests, Maurice refused the offer and asked him not to put his name in the film credits. He also threatened to take out an injunction against Shantaram in the Bombay High Court forbidding him to put his name on this project.